Montenegro is a tiny country on the Adriatic Sea that is nestled between Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Albania and despite its aggressive neighbors it managed to stay out of the Balkan wars.  I recently traveled there to shoot a story on spec with my buddy Simon Kelton author of the critically acclaimed The Rich Bastard’s Guide to Los Angeles.

Our intention was to scout the mountains of Montenegro for a spot to build a lodge and set up a helicopter skiing operation.  What? You thought I said some thing about a story…on spec?  Simon’s friend, a wealthy investor type, had a dream and……..you get it……Simon calls a few magazines, a photographer and a former champion slalom skier for the UK and next thing you know we’re in skiing Montenegro and writing/shooting a piece on spec for said magazines.  I love my life.

Shooting on spec is always a tricky concept for me to grasp.  As a general rule I believe that if you work your ass off you will create a strong body of work and come home with good, salable images and so you’ll do well in the end.  You’ll likely never match the multiple day rate, contract fees with the page rate sales but, let’s consider the flip side, you’ll be heli skiing in Montenegro and exploring a different part of the planet.  Shooting on spec can be a double edge sword.  If all photographers took all assignments “on spec,” we’d all be broke.    The last thing we need as photographers is for magazine to believe that they don’t need to pay creative fees and expenses.  It should be the magazines choice to take the risk on a piece and the photographer for that matter.  That’s why they have editors researching what type of stories will bring in the add revenue and that’s why photographers spend so much time learning there craft and promoting themselves.

That said, exploring new places inspires creativity in my work. I was particularly flat creatively at the time and I decided to use the Montenegro trip as a jump off point for a new perspective.  Hopefully.  And, oh yeah, did I mention the heli skiing part.

It worked!  Montenegro was an incredible place to visit and ski and upon my return to the States my mind was doing back flips full of new photo ideas. So, shooting on spec can be good but I suggest using sparingly.

Below is my favorite image from the Montenegro edit.  I shot tons of great skiing stuff but those images did nothing to really inspire my “new perspective.”  It was this image and the synchronistic flow of camera/universe blah blah blah that it took to create it that really opened my eyes.  While speeding up a canyon in a pair of military helicopters I noticed the reflection of the pilots shoulder patch (the Montenegrean crest) intersecting the second chopper outside.  The Montenegrean people are an extraordinarily proud people, it seemed a fitting image.

A Montenegrean military helicopter and the reflection of the Montenegrean crest.